KARACHI, April 4: Internet subscribers hooked to at least 45 ISPs in the city suffered on Friday owing to severing of a fibre optic link of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company.

When contacted, the PTCL director general, Iqbal Waseem, told Dawn that the fibre optic link had been damaged by the labourers of the National Highway Authority near Pak Colony.

“The fibre optic link was physically damaged. PTCL teams rushed to the spot as soon as we learnt about the cutting off of the Internet link. Since all fibre optics, being very delicate, are covered in concrete shells, we had a hard time trying to repair them. But the connection — known as STM-1 in technical parlance — was restored at 10.10pm.”

He said the Internet service providers in the city had been given connection from a backup. “But the backup is obviously not enough to meet the requirements of heavy traffic. Normally the fibre optic link provides 155 mega bytes. The backup arrangement provided the Internet service providers with only 34 mega-bytes.”

The PTCL director general said a team of the NHA had been called to the spot and informed about the damage to the fibre optic link. He added that the NHA had been told to exercise more care in the future.

The secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, V.A. Abidi, said all the Internet service providers in the city had a very difficult time almost all day when STM-1 remained down because of the severing of the fibre optic link.

“Even those Internet service providers who have international private lease lines, as alternative arrangement, were adversely affected because they also have PTCL connections,” he explained.

He added that all Internet service providers had a hard time explaining to their customers that the reason why their Internet connections were not working properly was that STM-1 was down.

PTCL CAMP: The PTCL will set up a special camp at the Marston Road exchange on April 7, 8, from 10am to 1pm, for the issuance of on-the-spot demand notes and provision of telephone connections within 24 hours after receipt of the paid copies of the demand notes, adds APP.